Shortstories

I Spend My Days Contemplating The Enormity Of My Mistake

Do you know that thing where you go to do something but at the same time you’re not really bothering to make the proper effort and so you do it in a careless sloppy way imagining that it’ll somehow come out okay but it doesn’t, it fucks up on you almost immediately. Well, that’s what it was like when I created the universe – I wasn’t paying attention, I wasn’t really thinking about what I was doing, I was being half-hearted about it, and then the next thing was that Irealised that I had fucked it all up. Not such a clever thing to do, is it? It’s always such a very bad feeling when that happens, as I’m sure you know perfectly well from your own experience. The self-recrimination is immense.

Laziness is an awful thing, isn’t it? It lies at the root of so much of what isn’t right in the world – nine times out often the culprit is pure loathsome vile toxic irresponsible laziness. It’s a curse and let there be no mistake about it! It’s something we just can’t get away with, even though somehow we keep on thinking that we can. Some lessons are hard to learn I guess – you just have to keep coming back to them time and time again. It’s as if you’re always always always finding yourself back in the very same place, wondering how on earth you could be so incredibly stupid to keep coming back there. On the other hand, I’ve heard it said – by those who supposedly know what they’re talking about – that if a mistake is big enough, tremendous enough, momentous enough, then it isn’t a mistake at all. Well – this wasa mistake – you can trust me on that. Boy was it ever a mistake!

I spend my days contemplating the enormity of my mistake. Does that sound somewhat maudlin? I expect it probably does. I imagine that most people would probably tell me to get over it. “So you screwed up and created the universe,” they’d probably say, “so get over it!” But I can’t get over it, needless to say. How can I get over it when it’s right there staring me in the face every day? What do you think is the first thing I see every morning when I open my eyes? It’s a constant source of shame and humiliation to me. Talk about having to live with your mistakes!

Far from ‘getting over it’, it has got to the stage where I am now actively paranoid. I know people say that particular word very easily – people say it far too easily in fact – but I use the word advisedly. I know what I’m talking about here. You can trust me on that – I know all about paranoia! Paranoia and me go back a long way…

As I walk down the street my mind plays unkind tricks on me and I start to imagine that people are giving me curious sideways glances as they pass me by. I can see the judgement in their eyes as they look quickly away. I can feel the weight of judgement hanging in the air above my head and there’s nowhere I can go to escape it. Wherever I go I can always hear people whispering conspiratorially just out of the range of my hearing and I know what they’re talking about. Obviously I know what they’re talking about! I know very well what they’re talking about – I’m not a complete fool after all, I didn’t come down in the last shower of rain…